Don't Accept The Invitation
by TuringMachina
Summary: Reborn visits Namimori for a recon mission to become the saving grace of Vongola. He's out of his depth for once having being given no time to snoop around. Sawada Tsunayoshi tries to shoo him off saying he, the world's greatest hitman, is not safe there. What is the gatekeeper trying to protect him from?


Disclaimer: Khr isn't mine, but the idea is.

Hey there, welcome to the fanfic. Go ahead and let me know what you think of the story, cos it'll be lonely here otherwise :)

There you go~

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **Outsider**

Reborn looked at the desolate town in front of him which was quiet, for a place with the balance tilting towards the young, at 1 AM.

'The Hibaris have gotten quite the leash on the folks.' he thought as he perched on top of a tree to observe freely in its shade and camouflage.

"Xanxus has gotten too far this time. Even if he did possess the Vongola blood, killing the remaining successors will not appease our allies..." Nono told him, his posture grieving from losing his sons foremost, and the stress from having to stop his adopted son by personally destroying his ambitions - essentially putting him to cryosleep, getting to him. His guardians disapproved of his actions. "Delaying things won't prevent the inevitable, Nono.", they advised him, thinking that the 'unmeltable' ice melting could endanger the boss's life. Xanxus would certainly not appreciate the pause to his plans, to put it mildly.

Luckily, Reborn got clues that there might be one more candidate, a very distant relative of Primo who Iemitsu had hidden from them. Which was strange, since the guy was so loyal to the famiglia that he put them first before anything. But things were dire and Nono couldn't afford to give the Vongola any glaring weaknesses to exploit. There'd be a power vacuum if the boss would die, and his age made it a race against time.

'I thought if there was one thing redeemable about that idiot Iemitsu, it was his loyalty. But now that it came to this, it's fine to be a cradle robber if it means that Vongola's future is ensured.' he thought darkly, as he scanned the surroundings to see a person on the streets. There was a brown-haired man who looked about his twenties who stared at his direction, golden eyes glowing in the dark.

"It's dangerous in the night, child. Please, leave while you still can." his gentle voice permeated into the air.

His disguise was impeccable, but it was the other's high intuition that was impressive. The hitman hopped down from the branch, unwilling to keep an already blown jig up.

"Who're you, Mister?" he asked the other while scanning the other's looks to gain information. The lad was dressed in funeral clothing and looked solemn. He had eye bags on a close look, but his clothes were without wrinkles and his overall look was neat and tidy. He didn't slouch, but the lack of a smile and his demeanor exuded gloom.

* * *

"You're not going to find what you want in this town. It's a husk of its former self. What you try and gain here will be all for naught." the other warned, not even acknowledging his question. This made the hitman irritated as he reached for his gun to put the other in track; the brunette treated him like a tourist, rather than a lost child - and he wasn't going to belittle himself to act like a child with someone who was talking to him as a fellow adult. It made him slightly at ease to not take up that persona, even if he looked the part.

But before the gun made its appearance the other said, "It's not the hour for unrest.". Despite seeming unarmed, the keen insight made Reborn slightly wary. He lacked information and he wasn't going to 'shoot first and ask later', at least when the other seemed to be showing goodwill by showing absolutely no signs of hostility even when he saw that the other planned on popping a gun at him.

The brunette turned away from him and began to walk away, once he saw that the message was heeded. Reborn simply opted to follow him, confident that he could take care of himself if things went south. 'Might as well get a direction to start with.'

When they stopped in front of a house with no windows, the brunette turned around and simply told him, "You're no guest of mine." and very pettily dragged the welcome mat to the inside with him and slammed the door. But he didn't care that Reborn slipped in with him. The guy didn't even bother locking the door. Looking at Reborn who stared at the unlocked door that had multiple lock mechanisms, he said-

"The door won't be locked, because you aren't to be here." he implied that Reborn was the stray here. The hitman ignored the words and started exploring- something told him that this guy would be one of his main leads.

The door's nameplate had Sawada written on top of it and there was a dusty photo of a woman, a kid, and Sawada Iemitsu near the dining table. The dining room was dark, and the table had cobwebs. It looked like the kitchen was baren for years, with mold growing on corners. Reborn shot directly at the stairways well that Tsuna moved towards, to catch his attention - now that he knew that the man was his new pupil;

'Seems like I've to start by teaching this idiot on how you're to treat your guests.' The bullet tore into the brunette's shirt, leaving a thin trail of blood. Tsuna turned around with that, but he moved towards the kitchen and brought tweezers and a garbage bin- pulled out the ammo and placed it straight into the bin. It infuriated the hitman.

'What? This guy doesn't have OCD levels of cleaning judging by how _spotless_ this place is. Maybe, he actually hates people or perhaps it's meeting new people that gets on his nerves. But it doesn't make sense if it's him who made a shoutout to him first.

Or maybe, he just doesn't like new things into his house. But he let him enter the place without shutting close his own doors.' before he had the chance to ponder deeply, the golden gleam in the latter's eyes shone brighter like stars, and his gun's snout melted into itself. Reborn almost instinctively let out his own sun flames, but the slightest of the yellow flickers faced immediate rejection.

'It's like the house is coated with sky flames. But it's doing the opposite of harmonization... like as if, the house is obeying the will of its master.'

"I will not let you leave a trace behind. You've no place here. " despite the harsh words, the tone was gentle and laced with concern. Saying that he climbed upstairs.

Reborn was unsupervised, so he decided to collect information.

'It seems like Vongola's got itself a deus ex machina. The successor can adeptly use his flames and seems to have inherited Primo's instincts. But I need to work on his trust issues.' he saw that the brunette didn't leave any lights on - it seemed like he was intent on not letting him leave his presence.

'I could overcome the house's sky flames and forcibly control things, but it might end up damaging the source. Especially since this sky's intent on not harmonizing with me. The damage might be irreversible... I wonder why is he so antisocial.' He looked at the unfastened door and thought 'I wonder if I can enter back into the place if I exit now? He might concentrate his flames at the door once I leave... But I can't see the state of his surroundings that way.

I'll just forcibly tag along so that he can't manage to lock me out. If I stay with him for a while, he'd start opening up.'

* * *

He moved towards the kitchen, thinking that he could manage with the darkness since many of his missions required stealth and broadcasting his location with flares wasn't ideal. But since the windows were closed, more like plastered over, he was in pitch darkness. Clicking his tongue in distaste, he made Leon shapeshift into a night vision camera and wore it. 'Vongola's golden egg requires _quite_ the special incubation techniques.'

There was nothing in the fridge and it wasn't even powered on. 'Did he not pay for the electricity bill this time?'. There were only cobwebs and mold in the cabinets. Even the brooms and mops were collecting dust. In fact, they were the dirtiest items of the lot there, ironically. There was one thing that wasn't dusty or netted in webs - the knife set. But many of them were rusted, and some were blunt from disuse. There was no cooking with them. But why were they not disused?

The dinner table was musky and tilted like the Titanic- ready to sink at any opportune, auspicious moment, and the chairs looked like they would snap under a stick figure's weight. The plate cabinet nearby had shattered plates, with the best of the lot cracked right in the center. The glasses had holes in the bottom, and there was no drinking from them. There was an open bag of expresso which seemed partially consumed, and before Reborn could appreciate the brunette's tastes with its quality, he scowled in annoyance at how it was left bare to moisture. It was chunky and clumped together and the hitman wanted to put a hole in the brunette for letting good coffee go to waste like this.

The next room was a living room with the entrance closed by a wall that was newer and well maintained than the rest of the house. It had a stained glass door depicting a merry and colorful party and had an intricately designed outer wall with golden vines draping all over it. 'Why does this place have the most extravagant design? It also seems like the only place without sky flames.'

He changed Leon to a hammer and crashed the lock hole to see how Tsuna would react, but the other did nothing. So he moved forward and entered its interiors that starred a red wine cabinet with artificial lights that made it glow ruby red. The reflections from the cabinet made the place shimmer with different patterns. It looked like the glass bottles were crafted in such a way that their curves and corners refracted and diffused lights to create a beautiful gala. It was honestly, very tasteful and gorgeous. The counter that encircled it looked like it was a cathedral's golden harp, shining a soft gold. There was a small jewelry box that looked like a huge Faberge egg with a knife having a crimson ribbon tied around it inserted in a hole as the lock and key mechanism, and when Reborn opened it, there was a crystal glass bottle inside it. The knife was sharp, but the Hitman thought that this was a flimsy method for protecting something from prying eyes.

There was no glasses, shakers, ice and such for having a drink. 'It's a pretty expensive hobby for a collector to partake in. I wonder how he did he get the funds to set this gala up?'

He climbed upstairs to see the brunette stare at him from his desk. It looked like the other was reading until then. There was a bookcase on his left had topics of different nature, like as if the reader didn't have any favorite genre, or he was wishy-washy. There was a suffocating smell of incense in the room, and the hitman felt like gagging at the scent. His desk had a vase of white and spider lilies.

"I'm here to tutor you to become a Mafia Boss. Vongola needs a new heir and the others have been massacred by Xanxus" he said, putting the photos of the successor's corpses in front of the other's eyes. "You're the only choice left." he said, looking at the other's tired face to observe his reactions. The brunette reached out immediately for the trashcan, and for a second the hitman thought the other was going to puke into it. But the guy stuffed the photos right into it.

"You will not be my tutor." it was strange that the other was fixated at that point of the declaration. Reborn didn't need his acknowledgment, so it was alright. When he tried to set his canopy up for a nap, Tsuna gestured towards his bed and fell asleep on his desk. He didn't know if his presence was welcome or not welcome.

Nevermind, he wasn't welcome. The next morning, Tsuna noticed black hair strands on the floors and took the abandoned broom and made the whole house into a palace. Reborn's eyes twitched in fury.


End file.
